Users of communication systems often do not wished to be interrupted by a calling party under certain circumstances. For example, a user may not wish to be interrupted while engaged in certain tasks or projects. In another example, a user may not wish to be interrupted when they are in the presence of other users, such as a supervisor.
Such interruptions negatively impact the productivity of users. For instance, if the user is interrupted while working on a project, it may take a great deal of effort for the user to re-establish their work on the project.
Previous systems attempted to increase worker productivity by defining the availability of a target user and presenting this availability to the originating user. The availability was then used to determine whether the target user could be interrupted by the originating user. For instance, if the target user were engaged in an important meeting, the availability of the target user was typically set to a low value. Conversely, when the target user was located at their office, their availability was typically set to a higher value. Consequently, the target user would not be interrupted by the originating user when the target user was deemed to be unavailable and the productivity of the target user was correspondingly enhanced.
Unfortunately, previous approaches still operated ineffectively under many circumstances. For instance, previous systems projected the same availability of the target user to an originating user, regardless of the circumstances at the originating user. For example, the same availability of the target user would be projected to the originating user regardless of the topic of the intended call or the quality of the communication environment. Consequently, originating users with whom the target wished to communicate often were blocked while unwanted interruptions by originating users with whom the target did not wish to communicate frequently still occurred. These problems increased user frustration with the system, degraded the experience of the target user, and ultimately reduced worker productivity.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions with respect to their corresponding respective areas of inquiry and study except where specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.